Early results have been promising in Middletown High's microschool

On Board Online • September 21, 2026

By Sara Foss
Special Correspondent

Last year, the Enlarged School District of the City of Middletown launched one of its newer and more innovative programs, the At-Promise Microschool. It serves high school students who have had issues involving behavior, attendance and/or academics. While such students are often described as "at-risk," Middletown doesn't use that term, preferring to emphasize the students' potential.

So, what's a microschool? It's a school-within-a-school. It has its own section of the high school and its own teachers who teach core subjects. Not having to change classrooms reduces opportunities for students to make poor choices and get into trouble.

"All of our students have something going on in their outside lives, be it the incarceration of a parent, history of trauma, being raised by parents who are not their parents," said Patrick Woods, Middletown's dean of students. "Then there are students who find our school environment overwhelming. We have a big school, and they get lost quickly."

In 2025-26, there were about 22 students in the microschool, and this year's enrollment is about the same. Students get special support, including working with a social worker and guidance counselor. The microschool also has its own security personnel.

During the microschool's inaugural year, Middletown saw significant improvements in behavior and academics, with disciplinary incidents among students enrolled in the microschool falling 85% between September and January compared to the prior year.

In the prior school year (2024-25), the same students were enrolled in 148 courses during the second quarter. Their pass rate was a dismal 34%. In the microschool, these same students took 174 courses during the second quarter, with a pass rate of 94%.

"Our curriculum is the same curriculum students are getting in the regular high school," Dr. Woods said. "They're just getting it in a different way. Each student is working at their ability level and their pace based on teacher assessment."

Woods attributed improvements in behavior and academics to positive relationships with microschool staff. "Our students care whether or not they disappoint us," he said. "They want to do well because they know that makes us proud. They feel pride because it's been so long since some of them have felt any kind of success. There's less reason for them to act up when they're with us."

The microschool has been a game changer for 16-year-old Kisana Perez, a junior who is starting her second year in the program this fall.

During her freshman year, Kisana was failing all of her classes and her attendance was poor. Now she is going to school more and making the high honor roll. The dramatic improvement has changed her perspective; now, she hopes to attend college and study marine biology.

One of her challenges in school, Kisana said, is that she "can't sit still. I always want to be up doing something. I just don't want to sit in a chair for 50 minutes." At the microschool, she is allowed to get up and walk around, and she often visits with the guidance counselor there during these breaks. Her teachers, she said, "treat me like I am the best student in the world."

"They don't get loud with me because I'm not doing an assignment," she said. "They are patient with me, and I grew a bond with them. A lot of my teachers in my past school years, I didn't grow a bond with them. I didn't like going to school. I didn't like going to class. I didn't like doing my assignments. I didn't like doing any of that."

At the microschool, "I started to like being there because I had a good relationship with my teachers."

Her attendance is much better, Kisana said, but there are still days she doesn't go to school. What's changed is that she keeps up with her assignments even when she's not in class. "Seeing that my grades were good made me want to keep my grades good," she said. '"

Now Kisana plans to graduate a semester early. The microschool, she said, "has helped me and changed me as a person." Before, "I didn't believe in myself and I just didn't want to go to school. Being in the microschool for three months made me realize that now I want to graduate, now I want to go to college."

View a video interviewing Kisana and other microschool students at bit.ly/4gOfbsq .